<p>The experience of being a student at Dartmouth which has 4,000 undergrads and a LAC-like feel, and Cal with the 24,000 undergrads huge U experience, is night and day. It reflects itself in the size of the classes, the types of clubs and actitivies that can be found, the advising system, you name it. Not saying which is better, because I think kids that are happy at one probably couldn’t imagine switching to the other. But that’s the basic distinction.</p>
<p>Both are top schools and you can be very successful out of either; the question the OP needs to ask is which is a better fit.</p>